
G!ass__E^4 6'3 



/ 

THE 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 



THE 




RIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT 



UNDER THE 



WAE POWEE. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY Pw. F. WALLCUT, 
No. 221 WASHINGTON STEEET. 

1861. 



u 



IN BXCHAKGB 
OornaU U3?.iv» 
8fEI905 



EMANCIPATION UNDEE THE WAE POWEE, 



Extracts from the speech of John Quincy Adams, delivered in the 
U. S. House of Representatives, April 14 and 15, 1842, on War 
with Great Britain and Mexico : — 

What I say is involuntary, because the subject has been 
brought into the House from another quarter, as the gentle- 
man himself admits. I would leave that institution to the 
exclusive consideration and management of the States more 
peculiarly interested in it, just as long as they can keep 
within their own bounds. So far, I admit that Congress has 
no power to meddle with it. As long as they do not step 
out of their own bounds, and do not put the question to the 
people of the United States, whose peace, welfare and happi- 
ness are all at stake, so long I will agree to leave them to 
themselves. But when a member from a free State brings 
forward certain resolutions, for which, instead of reasoning to 
disprove his positions, you vote a censure upon him, and that 
without hearing, it is quite another affair. At the time this 
was done, I said that, as far as I could understand the resolu- 
tions proposed by the gentleman from Ohio, (Mr. Giddings,) 
there were some of them for which I was ready to vote, and 
some which I must vote against; and I will now tell this 
House, my constituents, and the world of mankind, that the 
resolution against which I would have voted was that in 
which he declares that what are called the slave States have 
the exclusive right of consultation on the subject of slavery. 
For that resolution I never would vote, because I believe 



4 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

ttat it is not just, and does not contain constitutional doc- 
trine. I believe that, so long as the slave States are able to 
sustain their institutions without going abroad or calling upon 
other parts of the Union to aid them or act on the subject, so 
long I will consent never to interfere. I have said this, and 
I repeat it ; but if they come to the free States, and say to 
them, you must help us to keep down our slaves, you must 
aid us in an insurrection and a civil war, then I say that with 
that call comes a full and plenary power to this House and 
to the Senate over the whole subject. It is a war power. 
I say it is a war power, and when your country is actually in 
war, whether it be a war of invasion or a war of insurrection, 
Congress has power to carry on the war, and must carry it 
on, according to the laws of war ; and by the laws of war, an 
invaded country has all its laws and municipal institutions 
swept by the board, and martial law takes the place of them. 
This power in Congress has, perhaps, never been called into 
exercise under the present Constitution of the United States. 
But when the laws of war are in force, what, I ask, is one of 
those laws ? It is this : that when a country is invaded, and 
two hostile armies are set in martial array, the commanders 
of both armies have -power to emancipate all the slaves in 
the invaded territory. Nor is this a mere theoretic state- 
ment. The history of South America shows that the doc- 
trine has been carried into practical execution within the last 
thirty years. Slavery was abolished in Columbia, first, by 
the Spanish General Morillo, and, secondly, by the American 
General Bolivar. It was aljolished by virtue of a military 
command given at the head of the army, and its abolition 
continues to be law to this day. It was abolished by the laws 
of war, and not by municipal enactments ; the power was 
exercised by military commanders, under instructions, of 
course, from their respective Governments. And here I 
recur again to the example of Gen. Jackson. What are you 
now about in Congress? You are about passing a grant to 
refund to Gen. Jackson the amount of a certain fine imposed 
upon him by a Judge, under the laws of the State of Louisi- 
ana. You are going to refund him the money, with interest; 
and this you are going to do because the imposition of the 
fine was unjust. And why was it unjust ? Because Gen. 
Jackson was acting under the laws of war, and because the 



VIEWS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 5 

moment you place a military commander in a district which 
is the theatre of war, the laws of war apply to that district. 

.AA. .AT, M^ AE> •V* 

-?t- -??• -n* w v^ 

I might furnish a thousand proofs to show that the pre- 
tensions of gentlemen to the sanctity of their municipal in- 
stitutions under a state of actual invasion and of actual war, 
whether servile, civil or foreign, is wholly unfounded, and 
that the laws of war do, in all such cases, take the prece- 
dence. I lay this down as the law of nations. I say that 
military authority takes, for the time, the place of all muni- 
cipal institutions, and slavery among the rest; and that, 
under that state of things, so far from its being true that the 
States where slavery exists have the exclusive management of 
the subject, not only the President of the United States, but 
the Commander of the Army, has power to order the universal 
emancipation of the slaves. I have given here more in 
detail a principle which I have asserted on this floor before 
now, and of which I have no more doubt than that you, sir, 
occupy that chair. I give it in its development, in order that 
any gentleman from any part of the Union may, if he thinks 
proper, deny the truth of the position, and may maintain his 
denial ; not by indignation, not by passion and fury, but by 
sound and sober reasoning from the laws of nations and the 
laws of war. And if my position can be answered and 
refuted, I shall receive the refutation with pleasure ; I shall 
be glad to listen to reason, aside, as I say, from indignation 
and passion. And if, by the force of reasoning, my under- 
standing can be convinced, I here pledge myself to recant 
what I have asserted. 

Let my position be answered ; let me be told, let my con- 
stituents be told, the people of my State be told — a State 
whose soil tolerates not the foot of a slave — that they are 
bound by the Constitution to a long and toilsome march under 
burning summer suns and a deadly Southern clime for the 
suppression of a servile war ; that they are bound to leave 
their bodies to rot upon the sands of Carolina, to leave their 
wives widows and their children orphans ; that those who can- 
not march are bound to pour out their treasures while their sons 
or brothers are pouring out their blood to suppress a servile, 
combined with a civil or a foreign war, and yet that there 
exists no power beyond the limits of the slave State where 



6 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

such, war is raging to emancipate the slaves. I say, let this 
be proved — I am open to conviction ; but till that conviction 
comes, I put it forth not as a dictate of feeling, but as a set- 
tled maxim of the laws of nations, that, in such a case, the 
military supersedes the civil power; and on this account I 
should have been obliged to vote, as I have said, against one 
of the resolutions of my excellent friend from Ohio, (Mr. 
Giddings,) or should at least have required that it be amended 
in conformity with the Constitution of the United States. 



THE WAR POWER OYER SLAVERY. 

We published, not long ago, an extract from a speech de- 
livered by John Quiucy Adams in Congress in 1842, in which 
that eminent statesman confidently announced the doctrine, 
that in a state of war, civil or servile, in the Southern States, 
Congress has full and plenary power over the whole subject 
of slavery ; martial law takes the place of civil laws and 
municipal institutions, slavery among the rest, and " not only 
the President of the United States, but the Commander of 
the Army, has power to order the universal emancipation of 
the slaves." 

Mr. Adams was, in 1842, under the ban of the slavehold- 
ers, who were trying to censure him or expel him from the 
House for ptreseuting a petition in favor of the dissolution of 
the Union. Lest it may be thought that the doctrine an- 
nounced at this time was thrown out hastily and ofiensively, 
and for the purpose of annoying and aggravating his enemies, 
and without due consideration, it may be worth while to show 
that six years previous, in May, 1836, Mr. Adams held the 
same opinions, and announced them as plainly as in 1842. 
Indeed, it is quite likely that this earlier announcement of 
these views was the cause of the secret hostility to the ex- 
President, which broke out so rancorously in 1842. We 
have before us a speech by Mr. Adams, on the joint resolu- 
tion for distributing rations to the distressed fugitives from 
Indian hostilities in the States of Alabama and Georgia, de- 
livered in the House of Representatives, May 25, 1836, and 



THE WAR POWER OVER SLAVERY 7 

published at the office of the National Intelligencer. We 
quote from it the following classification of the powers ' of 
Congress and the Executive: — 

"There are, then, Mr. Chairman, in the authority of Congress 
and of the Executive, two classes of powers, altogether different in 
their nature, and often incompatible with each other — the war 
power and the peace power. The peace power is limited by regu- 
lations and restricted by provisions prescribed within the Constitu- 
tion itself The war power is limited only by the laws and usages 
of nations. This power is tremendous : it is strictly constitutional, 
but it breaks down every barrier so anxiously erected for the protec- 
tion of liberty, of property, and of life. This, sir, is the power 
which authorizes you to pass the resolution now before you, and, in 
my opinion, no other." 

After an interruption, Mr. Adams returned to this subject, 
and went on to say : — 

" There are, indeed, powers of peace conferred upon Congress 
which also come within the scope and jurisdiction of the laws of 
nations, such as the negotiation of treaties of amity and commerce, 
the interchange of public ministers and consuls, and all the personal 
and social intercourse between the individual inhabitants of the 
United States and foreign nations, and the Indian tribes, which 
require the interposition of any law. But the powers of war are all 
regulated by the laws of nations, and are subject to no other limita- 
tion It was upon this principle that I voted against the reso- 
lution reported by the slavery committee, 'that Congress possess no 
constitutional authority to interfere, in any loay, with the institution of 
slavery in any of the States of this Confederacy,' to which resolu- 
tion most of those Avith whom I usually concur, and even my own 
colleagues in this House, gave their assent. / do not admit that 
there is, even among the peace powers of Congress, no such authority; but 
in war, there are many ways by which Congress not only have the authority, 

but ARE BOUND TO INTERFERE AVITH THE INSTITUTION OF SLA- 
VERY IN THE States. The existing law prohibiting the importa- 
tion of slaves into the United States from foreign countries is itself 
an interference with the institution of slavery in the States. It was 
so considered by the founders of the Constitution of the United 
States, in which it was stipulated that Congress should not interfere, 
in that way, with the institution, prior to the year 1808. 

" During the late war with Great Britain, the military and naval 
commanders of that nation issued proclamations, inviting the slaves 
to repair to their standard, with promises of freedom and of settle- 
ment in some of the British colonial establishments. This surely 
was an interference with the institution of slavery in the States. 
Bv the treaty of peace. Great Britain stipulated to evacuate all the 
forts and places in the United States, without carrying away any 
slaves. If the Government of the United States had no power to 



8 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

interfere, in any iccvj, with the institution of slavery in the States, 
they would not have had the authority to require this stipulation 
It is well known that this engagement was not fulfilled by the Bnt 
ish naval and military commanders ; that, on the contrary, they did 
carry away all the slaves whom they had induced to join them, and 
that the British Government inflexibly refused to restore any of 
them to their masters; that a claim of indemnity was consequently 
instituted in behalf of the owners of the slaves, and was successfully 
maintained. All that series of transactions was an interference by 
Congress with the institution of slavery in the States in one way — 
in the way of protection and support. It was by the institution of 
slavery alone that the restitution of slaves, enticed by proclamations 
into the British service, could be claimed as property. But for the 
institution of slavery, the British commanders could neither have 
allured them to their standard, nor restored them otherwise than as 
liberated prisoners of war. But for the institution of slavery, there 
could have been no stipulation that they should not be carried away 
as property, nor any claim of indemnity for the violation of that en- 
gagement." 

If this speech had been made in 1860 instead of 1836, 
Mr. Adams would not have been compelled to rely upon 
these comparatively trivial and unimportant instances of in- 
terference by Congress and the President for the support and 
protection of slavery. For the last twenty years, the support 
and protection of that institution has been, to use Mr. 
Adams's words at a later day, the vital and animating spirit 
of the Government ; and the Constitution has been interpreted 
and administered as if it contained an injunction upon all 
men, in power and out of power, to sustain and perpetuate 
slavery. Mr. Adams goes on to state how the war power 
may be used : — 

"But the war power of Congress over the institution of slavery 
in the States is yet far more extensive. Suppose the case of a ser- 
vile war, complicated, as to some extent it is even now, with an In- 
dian war; suppose Congress were called to raise armies, to supply 
money from the whole Union to suppress a servile insiirrection : 
would they have no authority to interfere with the institution of sla- 
very 1 The issue of a servile war nwy be disastrous ; it may become 
necessary for the master of the slave to recognize his emancipation 
by a treaty of peace ; can it for an instant be pretended that Con- 
gress, in such a contingency, would have no authority to interfere 
with the institution of slavery, in an;) icay, in the States 1 Why, it 
would be equivalent to saying that Congress have no constitutional 
authority to make peace. I suppose a more portentous case, cer- 
tainly within the bounds of possibility — I^ would to God I could 
say, not within the bounds of probability — " 



THE WAR IN ITS RELATION TO SLAVERY. 



9 



Mr. Adams here, at considerable length, portrays the dan- 
ger then existing of a war with Mexico, involving England 
and the European powers, bringing hostile armies and fleets 
to our own Southern territory, and inducing not only a foreign 
war, but an Indian, a civil, and a servile war, and making of 
the Southern States "the battle-field upon which the last 
great conflict will be fought between Slavery and Emancipa- 
tion." " Do you imagine (he asks) that your Congress will 
have no constitutional authority to interfere with the institu- 
tion of slavery, in amj waij, in the States of this Confederacy? 
Sir, they must and will interfere with zY— perhaps to sustain 
it by war, perhaps to abolish it by treaties of peace ; and 
they will not only possess the constitutional power so to 
interfere, but they will he bound in duty to do it, by the ex- 
press provisions of the Constitution itself. From the instant 
that your slaveholding States become the theatre of a war, 
civil servile, or foreign, from that instant, the war powers of 
Congress extend to interference with the institution of slave- 
ry, in every ivay by ivhich it can be interfered with, from a 
claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the ces- 
sion of States burdened with slavery to a foreign poiverr — 
New York Tribune, 



THE WAR IN ITS RELATION TO SLAVERY. 

To THE Editor of the New York Tribune: 

SiR^ — Our country is opening up a new page in the history 
of governments. The world has never witnessed such a 
spontaneous uprising of any people in support of free institu- 
tions as that now exhibited by the citizens of our Northern 

States. 

I observe that the vexed question of slavery still has to be 
met, both in the Cabinet and in the field. It has been met by 
former Presidents, by former Cabinets, and by former mili- 
tary officers. They have established a train of precedents 
that may be well followed at this day. I write now for the 
purpose of inviting attention to those principles of interna- 
tional law which are regarded by publicists and jurists as. 



10 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

proper guides in the exercise of that despotic and almost un- 
limited authority called the " war power." A synopsis of 
these doctrines was given by Major Greneral Gaines, at New 
Orleans, in 1838. 

Greneral Jessup had captured many fugitive slaves and In- 
dians in Florida, and had ordered them to be sent west of the 
Mississippi. At New Orleans, they were claimed by the 
owners, under legal process ; but Gen. Gaines, commanding 
that military district, refused to deliver them to the sheriff, 
and appeared in court, stating his own defence. 

He declared that these people (men, women and children) 
were captured in war, and held as prisoners of war : that as 
commander of that military department or district, he held 
them subject only to the order of the National Executive : 
that he could recognize no other power in time of war, or by 
the laws of war, as authorized to take prisoners from his pos- 
session. 

He asserted that, in time of war, all slaves were bellige- 
rents as much as their masters. The slave men, said he, 
cultivate the earth and supply provisions. The women cook 
the food, nurse the wounded and sick, and contribute to the 
maintenance of the war, often more than the same number of 
males. The slave children equally contribute whatever they 
are able to the support of the war. Indeed, he well support- 
ed General Butler's declaration, that slaves are contraband of 
war. 

The military officer, said he, can enter into no judicial ex- 
amination of the claim of one man to the bone and muscle of 
another as property. Nor could he, as a military officer, 
know what the laws of Florida were while engaged in main- 
taining the Federal Government by force of arms. In such 
case, he could only be guided by the laws of war ; and what- 
ever may be the li^ws of any State, they must yield to the 
safety of the Federal Government. This defence of General 
Gaines may be found in House Document No. 225, of the 
Second Session of the 25th Congress.. He sent the slaves 
West, where they became free. 

Louis, the slave of a man named Pacheco, botrnyed Major 
Dade's battalion, in 1836, and when he had witnessed their 
massacre, he joined the enemy. Two years subsequeptiy, Ije 
was captured. Pacheco claimed him ; General Jessup said 



THE WAR IN ITS RELATION TO SLAVERY. 11 

if he had time, he would try him before a court-martial and 
hang him, but would not deliver him to any man. He how- 
ever sent him West, and the fugitive slave became a free 
man, and is now fighting the Texans. General Jessup re- 
ported his action to the War Department, and Mr. Van Buren, 
then President, with his Cabinet, approved it. Pacheco then 
appealed to Congress, asking that body to pay him for the 
loss of his slave; and Mr. Greeley will recollect that he and 
myself, and a majority of the House of Representatives, 
voted against the bill, which was rejected. All concurred in 
the opinion that General Jessup did right in emancipating the 
slave, instead of returning him to his master. 

In 1838, General Taylor captured a number of negroes 
said to be fugitive slaves. Citizens of Florida, learning what 
had been done, immediately gathered around his camp, 
intending to secure the slaves who had escaped from them. 
General Taylor told them that he had no prisoners but " pris- 
oners of war." The claimants then desired to look at them, 
in order to determine whether he was holding their slaves as 
prisoners. The veteran warrior replied that no man should 
examine his prisoners for such a purpose; and he ordered 
them to depart. This action being reported to the War De- 
partment, was approved by the Executive. The slaves, how- 
ever, were sent West, and set free. 

In 1836, General Jessup wanted guides and men to act as 
spies. He therefore engaged several fugitive slaves to act as 
such, agreeing to secure the freedom of themselves and fami- 
lies if they served the Government faithfully. They agreed 
to do so, fulfilled their agreement, were sent West, and set 
free. Mr. Van Buren's Administration approved the con- 
tract, and Mr. Tyler's Administration approved the manner 
in which General Jessup fulfilled it by setting the slaves free. 

In December, 1814, General Jackson impressed a large 
number of slaves at and near New Orleans, and kept them at 
work erecting defences, behind which his troops won such 
glory on the 8th of January, 1815. The masters remon- 
strated. Jackson disregarded their remonstrances, and kept 
the slaves at work until many of them were killed by the 
enemy's shots; yet his action was approved by Mr. Madison 
and Cabinet, and by Congress, which has ever refused to pay 
the masters for their losses. 



12 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

But in all these cases, tlie masters were professedly friends 
of the Grovernment; and yet our Presidents and Cabinets and 
Generals have not hesitated to emancipate their slaves when- 
ever in time of war it was supposed to be for the interest of 
the country to do so. This was done in the exercise of the 
"war power" to which Mr. Adams referred in Congress, and 
for which he had the most abundant authority. But I think 
no records of this nation, nor of any other nation, will show 
an instance in which a fugitive slave has been sent back to a 
master who was in rebellion against the very Government 
who held his slave as captive. 

From these precedents I deduce the following doctrines: — 

1. That slaves belonging to an enemy are now and have 
ever been regarded as belligerents; may be lawfully captured 
and set free, sent out of the State, or otherwise disposed of at 
the will of the Executive. 

2. That as slaves enable an enemy to continue and carry 
on the war now waged against our Government, it becomes 
the duty of all officers and loyal citizens to use every proper 
means to induce the slaves to leave their masters, and cease 
lending aid and comfort to the rebels. 

3. That in all cases it becomes the duty of the Executive, 
and of all Executive officers and loyal citizens, to aid, assist 
and encourage those slaves who have escaped from rebel mas- 
ters to continue their flight and maintain their liberty. 

4. That to send back a fugitive slave to a rebel master 
would be lending aid and assistance to the rebellion. That 
those who arrest and send back such fugitives identify them- 
selves with the enemies of our Government, and should be 
indicted as traitors. 

J. B. GIDDINGS. 

Montreal, June 6, 1861. 



[lT' Accordingly, let old Virginia begin to put her house in 
order, and pack up for the removal of her half million of 
slaves, for fear of the impending storm. She has invited it, 
and only a speedy repentance will save her from being dashed 
to pieces among the rocks and surging billows of this dread- 
ful revolution. — New York Herald, April 22, 



KETALIATION. 13 



RETALIATION. 

The New York Courier and Enquirer, in an editorial, 
apparently from Gen. Webb's own hand, discourses as fol- 
lows : — 

"Most assuredly these madmen are calling down upon 
themselves a fearful retribution. We are no Abolitionists, as 
the columns of the Courier and Enquirer, for the whole 
period of its existence, now thirty-four years, will abundantly 
demonstrate. And for the whole of that period, except the 
first six months of its infancy, it has been under our exclusive 
editorial charge. 

" Never, during that long period, has an Abolition senti- 
ment found its way into our columns; and for the good rea- 
son, that we have respected, honored and revered the Consti- 
tution, and recognized our duty to obey and enforce its 
mandates. But Kebellion stalks through the land. A con- 
federacy of slave States has repudiated that Constitution ; 
and, placing themselves beyond its pale, openly seeks to 
destroy it, and ruin all whom it protects. They no longer 
profess any obedience to its requirements; and, of course, 
cannot claim its protection. By their own act, our duty to 
respect their rights, under that Constitution, ceases with their 
repudiation of it ; and our right to liberate their slave prop- 
erty is as clear as would be our right to liberate the slaves of 
Cuba in a war with Spain. 

" A band of pirates threaten and authorize piracy upon 
Northern commerce; and from the moment that threat is 
carried into execution, the fetters will fall from the manacled 
limbs of their slaves, and they will be encouraged and aided 
in the establishment of their freedom. Suppose Cuba were to 
issue letters of marque against our commerce, and, according 
to the Charleston Mercury, seize ' upon the rich prizes which 
may be coming from foreign lands,' does any sane man doubt 
that we should at once invade that island, and liberate her 
slaves? Or does any statesman or jurist question our right 
so to do ? And why, then, should we hesitate to pursue a 
similar course in respect to the so-called Southern Confede- 
racy ? 



14 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

"Spain, as a well-established nation, and recognized as 
such by all the powers of the world, would have the right, 
according to the laws of nations, to adopt such a course of 
proceeding ; but she would do it at her peril, and well weigh- 
ing the consequences. But the rebel government of the 
slave States possesses no such right. The act would be no 
more or less than piracy ; and we should not only hang at 
the yard-arm all persons caught in the practice, but we 
should be compelled, in self-defence, to carry the war into 
Africa, and deal with the slaves of the Confederacy precisely 
as we should, under similar circumstances, deal with those of 
Cuba. 

" ' The richly laden ships of the North,' says the Mobile 
Advertiser, 'swarm on every sea, and are absolutely unpro- 
tected. The harvest is ripe.' We admit it ; but gather it if 
you dare. Venture upon the capture of the poorest of those 
* richly laden ships,' and, from that moment, your slaves be- 
come freemen, doing battle in Freedom's cause. 'Hundreds 
and hundreds of millions of the property of the enemy invite 
us to spoil him — to spoil these Egyptians,' says the same 
paper. True, but you dare not venture upon the experiment ; 
or, if you should be so rash as to make the experiment, your 
fourteen hundred millions of slave property will cease to 
exist, and you will find four millions of liberated slaves in 
your midst, wreaking upon their present masters the smoth- 
ered vengeance of a servile race, who, for generation after 
generation, have groaned under the lash of the negro driver 
and his inhuman employer. 

" ' The risk of the privateer,' says the same organ of the 
rebel confederacy, ' will still be trifling; but he will continue 
to reap the harvest.' His risk will only be his neck, and his 
' harvest ' will be a halter. But the risk, nay, the certainty 
of the punishment to be visited upon the slave confederacy, 
will be far greater — of infinitely greater magnitude than 
they can well conceive ; because it will be no more or less 
than the loss of all their slave property, accompanied with the 
necessity of contending, hand to hand, for their lives, with the 
servile race so long accustomed to the lash, and the torture, 
and the branding and maiming of their inhuman masters ; a 
nation of robbers, who now, in the face of the civilized world, 
repudiate their just debts, rob banks and mints, sell freemen 



0. A. BROWNSQN ON THE WAE. 



15 



captured in an unarmed vessel into perpetiial slavery, trample 
upon law and order, insult our flag, capture our forts and 
arsenals, and, finally, invite pirates to prey upon our com- 
merce ' 

" Such a nest of pirates may do some mischief, and greatly 
alarm the timid. But the men of the North know how to 
deal with them ; and we tell them, once for all, that, if they 
dare grant a solitary letter of marque, and the person or per- 
sons acting under it venture to assail the poorest of our ves- 
sels in the peaceful navigation of the ocean, or the coasts and 
rivers of our country— /ro??? that moment their doom ts 
sealed, and slavery ceases to exist. We speak the unanimous 
sentiment of our people ; and to that sentiment all in author- 
ity will be compelled to bow submissively. So let us hear 
no more of the idle gasconade of ' the Chivalry ' of a nest of 
robbers, who seek to enlarge the area of their public and pri- 
vate virtues, &c." 

This is very plain talk, and cannot easily be misappre- 
hended by those whom it concerns. 



0. A. BROWNSON ON THE WAR. 

There is neither reason nor justice in Massachusetts, New 
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the great States north- 
west of the Ohio pouring out their blood and treasure for 
the gratification of the slaveholding pretensions of Mary- 
land, Kentucky or Missouri. The citi^ns of these States 
who own slaves are as much bound, if the preservation of the 
Union requires it, to give up their property in slaves, as we 
at the farther North are to pour out our blood and treas- 
ure to put down a rebellion which threatens alike them and 
us. If they love their few slaves more than they do the 
Union, let them go out of the Union. We are stronger to 
fight the battles of the Union without them than we are with 

them. . . 

But we have referred only to the slaves m the rebellious 
States, and if it is, or if it becomes, a military necessity to 



16 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

liberate all the slaves of the Union, and to treat the whole 
present slave population as freemen and citizens, it would be 
no more than just and proper that, at the conclusion of the 
war, the citizens of loyal States, or the loyal citizens of loyal 
sections of the rebellious States, should be indemnified at a 
reasonable rate for the slaves that may have been liberated. 
The States and sections of States named have not a large 
number of slaves, and if the Union is preserved, it would 
not be a very heavy burden on it to pay their ransom ; and 
to paying it, no patriot or loyal citizen of the free States 
would raise the slightest objection. The objection therefore 
urged, though grave, need not be regarded as insuperable ; 
and we think the advantages of the measure, in a military 
point of view, would be far greater than any disadvantage we 
have to apprehend from it. 

Whether the time for this important measure has come or 
not, it is for the President, as Commander-in-Chief of our 
armies, to determine. But, in our judgment, no single mea- 
sure could be adopted by the government that would more 
effectually aid its military operations, do more to weaken the 
rebel forces, and to strengthen our own. 

It seems to us, then, highly important, in every possible 
view of the case, that the Federal Government should avail 
itself of the opportunity given it by the Southern rebellion to 
perform this act of justice to the negro race ; to assimilate 
the labor system of the South to that of the North ; to re- 
move a great moral and political wrong ; and to wipe out 
the foul stain of slavery, which has hitherto sullied the other- 
wise bright escutcheon of our Republic. We are no fanatics 
on the subject of slavery, as is well known to our readers, 
and we make no extraordinary pretensions to modern philan- 
thropy ; but we cannot help fearing that, if the government 
lets slip the present opportunity of doing justice to the negro 
race, and of placing our republic throughout in harmony 
with modern civilization, Grod, who is especially the God of 
the poor and the oppressed, will never give victory to our 
arms, or suffer us to succeed in our efforts to suppress rebel- 
lion and restore peace and integrity in the Union. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE NEW YORK HERALD. 17 

THE NEW YOPvK HERALD ON THE WAR. 

With the secession of Virginia, there is going to be enacted 
on the banks of the Potomac one of the most terrible con- 
flicts the world has ever witnessed ; and Virginia, with all her 
social systems, will be doomed, and swept away.— iYew; lorA: 
Herald, April 19. 

We must also admonish the people of Maryland that we 
of the North have the common right of way through their 
State to our National Capital. But let her join the revolu- 
tionists, and her substance will be devoured by our ^orthern 
legions as by an Arabian cloud of locusts, and her slave pop- 
ulation will disappear in a single campaign. 

A Northern invasion of Virginia and of Kentucky, it ne- 
cessary, carrying along with it the Canadian line of Alrican 
freedom, as it must do from the very nature of civil war, will 
produce a powerful Union reaction. The slave population ot 
the border States will be moved in two directions. Une 
branch of it, without the masters, will be moved Northward, 
and the other branch, with the masters, will be moved South- 
ward, so that, by the time the Northern army will have pen- 
etrated to the centre of the border slave States, they will be 
relieved of the substance and abstract rights of slave prop- 
erty for all time to come. 

Finally, the revolted States having appealed to the sword 
of revolution to redress their wrongs, may soon have to 
choose between submission to the Union or the bloody extinc- 
tion of slavery, from the absence of any law, any wish, any 
power for its protection. — Ibid, April 20. 

By land and water, if she places herself in the attitude of 
rebellion, Maryland may be overrun and subdued m a single 
week, including the extinction of slavery within her own 
borders ; for war makes its own laws. , ^ iv/r 

We are less concerned about Washington than about Ma- 
ryland. Loyal to the Union, she is perfectly safe, negroes 
and all ; disloyal to the Union, she may be crushed including 
her institution of slavery. Let her stand by the Union and 
the Union will protect and respect her— slavery and all.— 
Ibid, April 21. 



18 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

i 

Virginia, next to Maryland, will be subjected to this test. 
She has seceded, and hence she will probably risk the break- 
ing of every bone in her body. If so, we fear that every 
bone in her body will be broken, including her backbone of 
slavery. The day is not far off when the Union men of the 
revolted States will be asked to come to the relief of their 
misguided brethren, for, otherwise, the war which they have 
chosen to secure their institution of slavery may result in 
wiping it out of existence. — Ibid^ April 23. 

In advance of this movement. President Lincoln should 
issue his proclamation, guaranteeing the complete protection 
of all loyal Union men and their property, but warning the 
enemies of the Government of the dangers of confiscation, 
negroes included. 

If Virginia resists, the contest cannot last very long, con- 
sidering her large slave population, which will either become 
fugitives or take up arms against their masters. — Ibid, 
April 24. 

That we are to have a fight, that Virginia and Maryland 
will form the battle-ground, that the Northern roughs will 
sweep those States with fire and sword, is beyond peradven- 
ture. They have already been excit'Cd to the boiling point 
by the rich prospect of plunder held out by some of their 
leaders, and will not be satisfied unless they have a farm and 
a nigger each. There is no sort of exaggeration about these 
statements, as the people of the border States will shortly 
ascertain to their cost. The character of the coming cam- 
paign will be vindictive, fierce, bloody, and merciless beyond 
parallel in ancient or modern history. — Ibid, April 28. 

The class of population which is recruiting in our large 
cities, the regiments forming for service in behalf of the 
Union, can never be permanently worsted. They will pour 
down upon the villages and cities of Virginia and Maryland, 
and leave a desolate track behind them, and inspire terror in 
whatever vicinity they approach. — Ibid, April 29. 

It will be idle for Tennessee and Kentucky to attempt to 
escape from the issue, and to remain at peace, while the 
remainder of the country is at war. Neutrality will be con- 
sidered opposition, and the result of a general frontier war 



BUT ONE WAY OUT. 19 

will be, that slavery, as a domestic institution of the United 
States, will be utterly annihilated. — Ibid, April 30. 

The rebellion must be put down by some means or another, 
else it will put us down ; and if nothing else will do, even to 
proclaim the abolition of slavery would be legitimate. All 
is fair in war. . . . Gen. Fremont and the other Generals 
must act according to circumstances, and their own judgment, 
unless when otherwise ordered. ... If he is acting on his 
own responsibility, he is only carrying out the Confiscation 
Act, so far as the slaves are concerned. . . . We have no fear 
of the result. — N. Y. Herald, Sept. 3. 



BUT ONE WAY OUT. 

To our apprehension, God is fast closing every avenue to 
settled peace but by emancipation. And one of the most 
encouraging facts is that the eyes of the nation are becoming 
turned in that direction quite as rapidly as could have been 
anticipated. Some men of conservative antecedents, like 
Dickinson of New York, saw this necessity from the first. 
But it takes time to accustom a whole people to the thought, 
and to make them see the necessity. It was impossible for 
Northern men to fathom the spirit and the desperate exigen- 
cies of the slave system and its outbreak, and consequently 
to comprehend the desperate nature of the struggle. We 
were like a policeman endeavoring to arrest a boy-rufl&an, 
and, for the sake of his friends and for old acquaintance 
sake, doing it with all possible tenderness for his person and 
his feelings — till all of a sudden he feels the grip on his 
throat and the dagger's point at his breast, and knows that it 
is a life-and-death grapple. 

Slaveholding is simply piracy continued. Our people are 
beginning to spell out that short and easy lesson in the light 
of perjury, robbery, assassination, poisoning, and all the more 
than Algerine atrocities of this rebellion. It cannot require 
many more months of schooling like the last eight, to con- 
vince the dullest of us what are its essence and spirit. 



20 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

Our people also are rapidly finding out that no peaceful 
termination of this war will be permitted now by the Slave 
Power, except by its thorough overthrow. The robber has 
thrown oiF the mask, and says now to the nation, " Your life 
or mine ! " Even the compromising Everett has boldly told 
the South, "To be let alone is not all you ask — but you 
demand a great deal more." And in his late oration, he has 
most powerfully portrayed the impossibility of a peaceful dis- 
union. Many men, some anti-slavery, were at first inclined 
to yield to the idea of a separation. But every day's expe- 
rience is scattering that notion to the winds. The ferocious 
spirit exhibited from the first by the Secessionists towards all 
dissentients, the invasion of Western Virginia by Eastern, the 
threats to put down loyal Kentucky, the foray in Missouri, 
the plan for capturing Washington, which was part of the 
original scheme, are convincing proofs, that if by any pacifi- 
cation whatever our troops were disbanded to-day, to-morrow 
a Southern army would be on the march for Washington, 
Philadelphia, New York, and perhaps Chicago, 

The South has sufficiently declared the cause of this trouble 
to be the irreconcilable conflict between their institutions and 
the fundamental principles of this government. While the 
cause remains in full strength, and after it has once burst 
forth in bloody and final collision, nothing will ever check 
that strife, whether in or out of the Union. The cause must 
be eradicated. Meanwhile, our own position, both before the 
world and in our own struggle at home, is a false one, so long 
as we blink the real issue. 

Many indications are hopeful. Gen. Butler's letter to the 
Secretary of War, and the Secretary's reply, look in the 
right direction. The Confiscation Act is pregnant with great 
consequences, and may yet be so used as to become an eman- 
cipation act in all the rebel States. It is high time it were 
so used. We have serious doubts whether the rebellion will 
ever be suppressed till that trenchant weapon is wielded. 
We reverently doubt whether the Lord means it shall be. 

The quiet passage of the Confiscation Act was an immense 
step of governmental progress. Perhaps it was all that the 
nation as a whole and the government were ready for. It 
may answer as a keen wedge. But we trust that, in Decem- 
ber, Congress will make clean work by the full emaucipa- 



Fremont's proclamation. 21 

tion of all slaves in the rebel States, and by provision in some 
way for the speedy and certain extinction of slavery in the 
loyal States. To accomplish the latter event, we would our- 
selves willingly submit to any proper amount of pecuniary 
burden, provided it could be so arranged as not to recognize 
a right of property in man. — Chicago Congregational Herald. 



PROCLAMATION OF GEK FREMONT. 

Headquarters, Western Division, 
St. Louis, Aug. 30, 1861. 

Circumstances, in my judgment, are of sufficient urgency 
to render it necessary that the Commanding General of this 
Department should assume administrative powers of the 
State. Its disorganized condition, helplessness of civil au- 
thority, and the total insecurity of life and devastation of 
property by bands of murderers and marauders, who infest 
nearly every county in the State, and avail themselves of 
public misfortunes and the vicinity of a hostile force to grat- 
ify private and neighborhood vengeance, and who find an 
enemy wherever they find plunder, finally demand the se- 
verest measures to repress the daily increasing crimes and 
outrages which are driving oiF the inhabitants and ruining 
the State. In this condition, the public safety and the suc- 
cess of our arms require unity of purpose, without let or 
hindrance, to the prompt administration of affairs. In order, 
therefore, to suppress disorder, maintain the public peace, 
and give security to the persons and property of loyal citi- 
zens, I do hereby extend and declare martial law throughout 
the State of Missouri. 

The lines of the army occupation in this State are, for the 
present, declared to extend from Leavenworth by way of 
posts to Jeffbrson City, Rolla and Ironton, to Cape Girar- 
deau, on the Mississippi river. All persons who shall be 
taken with arms in their hands, within these lines, shall be 
tried by court martial, and, if found guilty, shall be shot. 

Real and personal property, owned by persons who shall 
take up arms against the United States, or who shall be 
directly proven to have taken an active part with the enemy 
in the field, is declared confiscated to public use, and their 



22 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. 

slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men. All 
persons who shall be proven to have destroyed, after the 
publication of this order, railroad tracks, bridges or telegraph 
lines, shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law. All per- 
sons engaged in treasonable correspondence, in giving or 
procuring aid to the enemy, in fomenting turmoils and dis- 
turbing public tranquility by creating or circulating false 
reports or incendiary documents, are warned that they are 
exposing themselves. All persons who have been led away 
from allegiance are requested to return to their homes forth- 
with. Any such absence, without sufficient cause, will be 
held to be presumptive evidence against them. 

The object of this declaration is to place in the hands of 
the military authorities power to give instantaneous effect to 
the existing laws, and to supply such deficiencies as the con- 
ditions of the war demand ; but it is not intended to suspend 
the ordinary tribunals of the country where law will be ad- 
ministered by civil officers in the usual manner, and with 
their customary authority, while the same can be peaceably 
administered. 

The Commanding General will labor vigilantly for the 
public welfiire, and, by his efforts for their safety, hopes to 
obtain not only acquiescence, but the active support of the 
people of the country. 

(Signed,) J. C. FREMONT, 

Major Ge7ieral Commanding. 



SLAVERY HAS DONE IT. 

Let us not for one moment lose sight of this fact. We go 
into this war not merely to sustain the government and de- 
fend the Constitution. There is a moral principle involved. 
How came that government in danger ? What has brought 
this wicked war, with all its evils and horrors, upon us? 
Whence comes the necessity for this uprising of the people ? 
To these questions, there can be but one answer. Slavery 
HAS DONE IT. That accurscd system, which has already cost 
us so much, has at length culminated in this present ruin and 
confusion. That system must be put down. The danger 
must never be suffered to occur again. The evil must be 



THE SLAVES AS A MILITARY ELEMENT. 23 

eradicated, cost what it may. We are for no half-way 
measures. So long as the slave system kept itself within 
the limits of the Constitution, we were bound to let it alone, 
and to respect its legal rights ; but when, overleaping those 
limits, it bids defiance to all law, and lays its vile hands on 
the sacred altar of liberty and the sacred flag of the country, 
and would overturn the Constitution itself, thenceforth slave- 
ry has no constitutional rights. It is by its own act an out- 
law. It can never come back again into the temple, and 
claim a place by right among the worshippers of truth and 
liberty. It has ostracised itself, and that for ever. 

Let us not be told, then, that the matter of slavery does 
not enter into the present controversy — that it is merely a 
war to uphold the government and put down secession. It 
is not so. So far from this, slavery is the very heart and 
head of this whole struggle. The conflict is between freedom 
on the one hand, maintaining its rights, and slavery on the 
other, usurping and demanding that to which it has no right. 
It is a war of principle as well as of self-preservation; and 
that is but a miserable and short-sighted policy which looks 
merely at the danger and overlooks the cause ; which seeks 
merely to put out the fire, and lets the incendiary go at 
large, to repeat the experiment at his leisure. We must do 
both — put out the fire, and put out the incendiary too. We 
meet the danger efi'ectually only by eradicating the disease. — 
Erie True American. 



THE SLAVES AS A MILITARY ELEMENT. 

The total white population of the eleven States now com- 
prising the confederacy is six million, and, therefore, to fill 
up the ranks of the proposed army (600,000) about ten per 
cent, of the entire white population will be required. In any 
other country than our own, such a draft could not be met, 
but the Southern States can furnish that number of men, and 
still not leave the material interests of the country in a suf- 
fering condition. Those who are incapacitated for bearing 
arms can oversee the plantations, and the negroes can go on 
undisturbed in their usual labors. In the North, the case is 
difierent ; the men who join the army of subjugation are the 
laborers, the producers, and the factory operatives. Nearly 



24 EMANCIPATION UNDER THE WAR POWER. f f 

every man from that section, especially those from the rural 
districts, leaves some branch of industry to suffer during his 
absence. The institution of slaverij in the South alone ena- 
bles her to place iji the field a force much larger in propor- 
tion to her v)hite population than the North, or indeed any 
country which is dejDendent entirely on free labor. The in- 
stitution is a tower of strength to the South, particularly at 
the present crisis, and our enemies will be likely to find that 
the " moral cancer," about which their orators are so fond of 
prating, is really one of the most effective weapons employed 
against the Union by the South. Whatever number of men 
may be needed for this war, we are confident our people 
stand ready to furnish. We are all enlisted for the war, and 
there must be no holding back until the independence of the 
South is fully acknowledged. — Montgomery {Ala.) Adv. 



A NOVEL SIGHT. 

A procession of several hundred stout "t\^gro men, mem- 
bers of the " domestic institution," marched through our 
streets yesterday in military order, under the command of 
Confederate officers. They were well armed and equipped 
with shovels, axes, blankets, &c. A merrier set never were 
seen. They were brimful of patriotism, shouting for Jeff. 
Davis and singing war songs, and each looked as if he only 
wanted the privilege of shooting an Abolitionist. 

An Abolitionist could not have looked upon this body of 
colored recruits for the Southern army without strongly sus- 
pecting that his intense sympathy for the " poor slave " was 
not appreciated, that it was wasted on an ungrateful subject. 

The arms of these colored warriors were rather mysteri- 
ous. Could it be that those gleaming axes were intended 
to drive into the thick skulls of the Abolitionists the truth, 
to which they are wilfully blind, that their interference in 
behalf of Southern slaves is neither appreciated nor desired ; 
or that those shovels were intended to dig trenches for the 
interment of their carcasses? It may be that the shovels are 
to be used in digging ditches, throwing up breastworks, or the 
construction of masked batteries, those abominations to every 
abolition Paul Pry who is so unlucky as to stumble upon 
them. — Memphis Avalanche, Sept. 3. 



IH^ 



